Campus Judiciaries on Trial: An Update from the Courts

Article here. Excerpt:

'Students accused of misconduct on college campuses have long suffered from a lack of due process in university adjudications. From its founding in 1999, for example, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has received complaints from students alleging that they were treated unfairly in campus proceedings.

Over the past five years, however, a particularly dire situation has emerged for the increasing number of students who find themselves accused of sexual misconduct on campus. Under tremendous pressure from the federal government, colleges and universities routinely use their internal disciplinary processes to adjudicate claims of sexual assault, often with shockingly little regard for the due process rights of students who stand accused of one of society’s most heinous offenses. The result is students whose lives are dramatically altered by patently unfair proceedings.

Increasingly, these students are seeking redress in federal and state courts, alleging that their universities violated their due process rights, breached contractual obligations, and even discriminated against them on the basis of their sex. So far, the results have been mixed. It is clear that in many cases, these students do have cognizable legal claims against their universities. However, it is also clear that many judges—particularly federal judges—are extremely reluctant to interfere in the internal workings of university judicial systems absent a showing of the most egregious disregard for basic fairness.'